What do you think about Buckhead seceding due to rising crime (Atlanta: city hall, new home)

[TheseGoTo11]

This seems like a good idea. If homicides nationally don't start to drop could make sense for a lot of other places.

[JC84]

Originally Posted by primaltech

I know. I'm exaggerating for sure, but clearly those tax aversion/resentment and general Atlanta-resentment undercurrents are drivers here, not just a simple matter of a few incidents of criminal activity.

Anyway, I hope the fight against this secession notion wins over the fight for it. Make some changes, do what's needed.

As someone who's lived in both North and South Fulton, I can tell you exactly what it is--attitude towards crime. In south Fulton, people are so numb to how much it happens that it's become normalized, expected. Per the comments on Ring, usually something like "you heard gun shots? Go back to bed" or "you knew what you were moving to" or "don't call the cops, you'll murder someone!"

VS up here it's a very big deal when something (rarely) happens. The community comes together to decry what happened. There's so little tolerance for crime compared to the average attitude of South Fulton.

I honestly thank God every day for the fact that I now live in North Fulton. I feel safe in my own neighborhood (and house!) again, and no one here would gaslight me for being concerned for my family's safety.

[JC84]

Originally Posted by ronricks

You can’t even jog in Buckhead without getting shot. Or go to an upscale hotel. But hey it’s just a few incidents of crime no biggie. People are dying but it is racist white people who want to leave Atlanta over property tax distribution. Right?

Exactly. I'm so sick of being gaslight for not tolerating this nonsense.

[Born 2 Roll]

Originally Posted by AnsleyPark

Good observations (as always). Watching this from afar, I am very saddened that my beloved city is coming to this.

It is sad, but unfortunately one may not necessarily be able to say that it is all that surprising considering the tension that has long existed between the affluent single-family residential part of Buckhead and the Buckhead/Atlanta proper business and governing establishment.

That tension goes back at least to the initial extension of MARTA heavy rail into the area back in the 1980’s and has been inflamed on multiple occasions of note, including:

> When the Buckhead and Atlanta proper business and governing establishment pushed through the construction of the Georgia 400 ITP expansion through some affluent upscale Buckhead residential neighborhoods where the GA-400 ITP expansion was strongly and bitterly opposed...

> The proliferation of CoA government-permitted nightclubs in Buckhead through the 1980’s and 1990’s that resulted in numerous violent incidents that came to a head in the early 2000’s...

> Multiple occasions where Buckhead residents have complained about a lack of municipal services (including police protection) in an affluent Buckhead district where a high level of services is expected by affluent residents, etc.

[Born 2 Roll]

Originally Posted by Gulch

The Georgia GOP is going to get a very hard lesson that killing the golden goose (Atlanta) for (very, very) short-term political gain isn't going to end well.

Your comment raises another important point, which is that many Republican state legislators in both chambers, but particularly in the Georgia state Senate, seem to increasingly seek to have control of the Atlanta Airport be taken over by Georgia state government.

And many of those legislators (including leading airport takeover proponent Georgia state Senator Burt Jones of Jackson, who along with his father was pictured with former president Donald Trump at Trump’s South Florida Mar-a-Lago estate back in early May and reportedly is trying to decide whether to enter the 2022 race for Georgia Lt. governor or challenge incumbent Brian Kemp in the GOP Primary of the Governor’s race) may seem to see Buckhead de-annexation and cityhood as a way to achieve the goal of a Georgia state government takeover of the Atlanta Airport...

... Which along with finally achieving the long held OTP exurban/rural conservative goal of taming and constraining what they consider to be an out-of-control and defiant City of Atlanta, may be why so many conservative legislators support Buckhead de-annexation and cityhood: Because Buckhead de-annexation and cityhood weakens a City of Atlanta government that many exurban and rural conservatives have long considered to be a leftist urban nuisance in a state otherwise politically/socially/culturally controlled and dominated by exurban and rural conservatives.

OTP conservatives (who are feeling an increasing amount of pressure after losing Georgia in 2 U.S. Senate races and the 2020 Presidential Election) feel that Buckhead de-annexation/cityhood and gaining control of the Atlanta Airport will at the very least help them remain competitive in Georgia politics if not retain control of Georgia state government as the state’s demographics continue to become more favorable to increasing Democratic Party competitiveness.

[Born 2 Roll]

Originally Posted by Ant131531

Why is it that the Atlanta area is the only metro area that seems to be so balkanized? I don't see northern Chicago residents trying to secede from south Chicago even though there's high crime there.

Originally Posted by Gulch

Northern New Jersey, St. Louis, Detroit, Miami, Dallas/Fort Worth, and even Chicago also have a metric ton of municipalities that hamstring planning. What's unique here is that now a significant chunk of a major city is being proposed to be broken off from the whole central city.

Northwestern Cook County (home county of Chicago proper) actually has attempted to secede from the rest of Cook County in the past on the grounds of political, social and cultural differences between that more conservative and affluent suburban part of the county and the less conservative and much more urban rest of Cook County.

The San Fernando Valley portion of Los Angeles proper has also made multiple serious attempts to breakaway from the rest of L.A. proper in the past.

[Born 2 Roll]

Originally Posted by arjay57

Oh, come now, primal. The folks up in Buckhead are the same crew who run the downtown banks, the Midtown law firms and the big financial concerns in Buckhead. They are huge donors to the city's hospitals, museums, parks, universities and cultural attractions. They've been doing it for generations, often with enthusiasm and remarkably little grumbling.

Yep... And that dominance of the Buckhead business community and their desire to make Buckhead a very high-profile business and entertainment district has been what has caused much of the tension with much of the Buckhead residential community which has mostly desired for Buckhead to be a relatively more exclusive mostly residential community.

The Buckhead business community (which dominates the Atlanta business community as you noted) has most often gotten their way as demonstrated by the implementation of MARTA heavy rail service, the erstwhile proliferation of nightclubs, the construction of the Georgia 400 extension through the district and the growth of Buckhead into a major commercial/business district.

But much of the growth of the commercial/business side of Buckhead has often left many of the district’s affluent residential neighborhoods feeling slighted because becoming a big commercial district is not necessarily what those residential areas have wanted.

That’s particularly when a good chunk of those affluent residential neighborhoods were paved over for the construction of GA-400 and particularly during the times that crime has become a problem in a part of the city and metro area where the affluent residents think that they have the financial and political resources to tamp down on crime.

The current Buckhead de-annexation cityhood movement (which admittedly has progressed pretty far along) is not necessarily the result of the current crime wave as much it may be the culmination of decades of tension and disagreement between the divergent visions of Buckhead’s residential neighborhoods and Buckhead’s dominated business establishment.

[Gulch]

Originally Posted by Born 2 Roll

OTP conservatives (who are feeling an increasing amount of pressure after losing Georgia in 2 U.S. Senate races and the 2020 Presidential Election) feel that Buckhead de-annexation/cityhood and gaining control of the Atlanta Airport will at the very least help them remain competitive in Georgia politics if not retain control of Georgia state government as the state’s demographics continue to become more favorable to increasing Democratic Party competitiveness.

So if they're ok with screwing the City of Atlanta in this manner, I'm sure they're more than okay with the inevitable financial bailout by the state when the city gets hammered by losing 40% of its tax base.

[Gulch]

Originally Posted by Born 2 Roll

Northwestern Cook County (home county of Chicago proper) actually has attempted to secede from the rest of Cook County in the past on the grounds of political, social and cultural differences between that more conservative and affluent suburban part of the county and the less conservative and much more urban rest of Cook County.

The San Fernando Valley portion of Los Angeles proper has also made multiple serious attempts to breakaway from the rest of L.A. proper in the past.

I forgot about those two efforts (the latter, which was Measure F, actually allowed all voters in the city of Los Angeles to vote on it, which is probably why it was defeated).

[Born 2 Roll]

Originally Posted by Gulch

So if they're ok with screwing the City of Atlanta in this manner, I'm sure they're more than okay with the inevitable financial bailout by the state when the city gets hammered by losing 40% of its tax base.

Yep... That’s EXACTLY why the business community is so strongly opposed to the prospect of Buckhead de-annexation and cityhood: Because the inevitable resulting financial problems of what remains of the City of Atlanta very likely would wreak havoc on the State of Georgia’s Triple-A bond rating and reputation as a top place to do business both nationally and internationally.

But as often increasingly seems to be the case these days with many governing bodies both left and right, the Georgia Legislature obviously often is not always the most rational governing body, especially with many exurban and rural conservatives thinking that they have a legitimate shot of finally reining in what they have long considered to be a wayward Atlanta city government and bringing down to size and under what they consider to be the proper control of a Georgia state government that (at least for the time being) remains under the decided control of said exurban and rural conservatives.